Life imitating artifice. But who could blame her? Just as she had reimagined her life story as a rags to riches drama—actually her well-to-do father worked in the arms business—she had bonded with another master of make believe. They both propagated the myth of hard scrabble beginnings, she with the story that she first arrived in Times Square with $32 dollars to her name, Guy affecting the laddish swagger and fake Michael Caine Mockney accent of an East End gangster that belied his sturdily upper middle class roots as the step son of Sir Michael Leighton who owns a sprawling estate, Loton Park on the Welsh borders.
Blind to the nuances of British class and status, it seems that Madonna simply misread the social signals, falling for a lovably aggressive yet artistic rogue who had in fact gone out of his way to disguise his high born roots. Ironically she was faking her past to conform to the conventional American dream of making it by hard work and talent, Guy was hiding his status to pursue his fascination with low lifes.
Madonna could forgive all that. After all when she first met Guy at the country home of Sting and Trudi Styler in 1999, Guy was the new big thing, riding high with his directorial debut, the gangster movie Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. He was edgy, creative but most of all successful in a field where she had always failed, making movies. She has said that she knew immediately that he was one of the few men who could "cope" with her.
A notoriously controlling bossy-boots, the one thing Madonna hates more than chaos in her life is failure. Throughout her career she has attached herself to those who are on the way up. From actress and style guru Debi Mazar to producer William Orbit she has the instinct to sniff out the cool and the credible. At last here was a match made in artistic heaven, a talented young film director who could put her back on the movie map after a string of so-so efforts. After directing Brad Pitt in another gangster movie, Snatch, he tried his hand at straight drama, remaking the 1974 Swept Away with his new bride in the lead. Like others before him, he failed to unlock in Madonna any talent for celluloid, critics universally criticizing her performance as wooden and his directorial efforts as laughable. If the tide was out on Madonna’s acting career, Guy’s directorial promise seemed equally washed up. While his friend, producer Matthew Vaughn made the critically acclaimed gangster film Layer Cake, Guy floundered into the shallows with another blank, ‘Revolver.’ This was not going according to script.
This month his latest foray into the underworld, RockNRolla has opened to less than rapturous reviews. Meanwhile Madonna has moved on reasoning that anything her husband can do, she can do better. Her directorial debut Filth and Wisdom, which was premiered on New York’s Lower East Side “where my struggle began,” earned high praise from the critics. “She has real potential as a film maker,” wrote James Christopher in the London Times about this frothy comedy which she also co wrote. “Her film has an artistic ambition that has simply bypassed her husband.”
It was an observation that could serve as a metaphor for their marriage. With her Hard Candy album—her twentieth in 26 years—working the charts and her Sticky and Sweet tour selling out, at fifty Madonna is about to start all over again. She has proved that she can live with fake. But not with failure.
Andrew Morton is the author of Madonna (St Martins Press).
Tracy Quan's latest novel is Diary of a Jetsetting Call Girl, set in Provence and praised in The Nation as a "deft account of occupational rigors and anxieties before the crash." Tracy's debut, Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl, and the sequel, Diary of a Married Call Girl, are international bestsellers. A regular columnist for The Guardian, she has written for many publications including Cosmopolitan, The Financial Times, and The New York Times.
Joe Mathews is a journalist, an Irvine senior fellow at the New America Foundation, and a contributing writer at the Los Angeles Times. He previously served as Justice Department reporter for the Wall Street Journal and as a city desk reporter at the Baltimore Sun. He is the author of The People’s Machine: Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Rise of Blockbuster Democracy.
Gerald Posner is the award-winning author of 10 investigative nonfiction bestsellers, ranging from political assassinations, to Nazi war criminals, to 9/11, to terrorism (www.posner.com). Posner lives in Miami Beach with his wife, the author Trisha Posner.
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Andrew Morton is one of the world's best-known biographers. His groundbreaking biography of Diana, Princess of Wales, is a modern classic. while his latest bestseller, on Tom Cruise, has made headlines around the world. Morton’s portrait of Monica Lewinsky revealed the young woman behind the blue dress, while his biography of Madonna nailed the myths and legends surrounding her controversial life.
Andrew Morton is one of the world's best-known biographers. His groundbreaking biography of Diana, Princess of Wales, is a modern classic. while his latest bestseller, on Tom Cruise, has made headlines around the world. Morton’s portrait of Monica Lewinsky revealed the young woman behind the blue dress, while his biography of Madonna nailed the myths and legends surrounding her controversial life.
Andrew Morton is one of the world's best-known biographers. His groundbreaking biography of Diana, Princess of Wales, is a modern classic. while his latest bestseller, on Tom Cruise, has made headlines around the world. Morton’s portrait of Monica Lewinsky revealed the young woman behind the blue dress, while his biography of Madonna nailed the myths and legends surrounding her controversial life.
Andrew Morton is one of the world's best-known biographers. His groundbreaking biography of Diana, Princess of Wales, is a modern classic. while his latest bestseller, on Tom Cruise, has made headlines around the world. Morton’s portrait of Monica Lewinsky revealed the young woman behind the blue dress, while his biography of Madonna nailed the myths and legends surrounding her controversial life.
Madge is like any 50 year old. She looked in the mirror and saw the wrinkles and the body that isn't what it used to be. Her answer to the natural progression in life? Surgery and to find someone new to tell her how good she looked. Sad really as I always thought of her as a strong woman only to find out that she isn't.
Who can predict what we will feel like when we're 'of a certain age'? I think celebrities are just more honest and 'out there' with their feelings. I wish both of them the best of luck in their lives and hope they find what they're looking for. I think she's strong for being honest.
I wonder who will get custody of her British accent?
It is always sad when celebrities, who seem happy, decide to divorce. Some might say, who didn't see it coming? In my opinion how could the sex icon of the nineties turn into a British golden woman? I wish them and their children all the best of luck in the future.
It was definitely time for Madonna to move on.Can we stop calling her "Madge" now?
It is unfair for Morton to characterize Madonna as not having to struggle in New York when she got her start. Nobody is as successful as she is without lots of blood sweat and tears. And as for coming from a well-to-do father, that is a little disingenuous as his upper-middle income salary supported a family of just under ten. And to simplify the end of her marriage to Ritchie the way Morton has is ridiculous. Perhaps it ended for the same reasons other marriages don't work - shit happens. Life is that way.. especially when both parties are in the entertainment industry, one of which who is arguably the world's biggest superstar. I give Madonna a lot more credit than Morton does.
I wonder, now that she is dumping Guy, the poor guy, will she also dump that phony British accent?
Of course, she got bored. Madonna hasn't a clue to who she really is. She has no style. She adopts hair colors, husbands, and lifestyles the way she adopts the latest fashions no matter how ugly.
The only Madonna persona which suited her was her adoption of Marlene Dietrich's moves.
It's silly rich women with no sense of self who dress like Russian peasants one year, 12 year old girls the next and astronauts the year after that.
Women -- and men -- who work in fashion usually have a sense of style which doesn't change: Armani, Calvin Klein. Even Ralph Lauren who has created Wasp style, Southwest style and Safari style has created styles not fashion.
With Madonna there is no there there.
There is a song on her new album "Hard Candy" called "Miles Away" that contains the line "you only love me miles away..." I think that in a nutshell explains the differences and dysfunction this marriage was bound to have from the day they became husband and wife. Madonna, all powerful, all controlling, decisive, wealthy beyond compare and an iconic stature that most men could not match. Guy Ritchie thought he could tame the shrew and has ended up just another one of her entourage, her bitches. Guy is seemingly your typical, pub-crawling, soccer-loving, manly British man with ambitions and drive to be a film director. His first 2 movies were modest hits but the rest have all flopped miserably. He must feel like a failure compared to the woman he chose to marry. If he wanted a geisha girl, he should have gone to Japan and found a subservient woman who would do his bidding. Madonna does no one's bidding. His ego, pride and masculinity have all been tested and he obviously could not stand his wife's continued success while his spiraled downwards. Unfortunately for Madonna, I do not think there is a man alive who could be her husband and be happy with just that. As for the settlement, Guy has an estate worth 35 million separately from her and has not really contributed to her bank account in any major way. Did he co-write songs, help create her hugely successful tours or give any advice or ideas for her to use? It seems like he stayed as far away from her as possible (i.e. "Miles Away"), not being supportive and certainly played no part in the continuation of her international fame and fortune. I hope her lawyers make sure he gets as little as possible. Madonna owes all of her success to herself and the creative people she surrounded herself with and not to the man who obviously wanted a woman at home, cooking dinner, barefoot and pregnant. Guy should concentrate on making "Sherlock Holmes" into a good movie instead of the violent crap he has passing off as cinema and leave the marriage silently with his tail tucked between his legs. If he tries to fight for half of her money, Madonna and lawyer will cut off what's left of his testicles and he'll wind up with less then what he could have gained.
Does this mean she is moving back to the U.S.? The best part, of her marriage to a Brit, was her move to the UK. The British can keep her.
Guy should have spoken to Sandra Bernhardt, Jellybean Benitez, Sean Penn, and Andy Bird. Remember, Andy Bird was her first choice.
She has no idea who she is. It's sad but I also "get it". It's part of our generation also, probably a little bit of someone who lost their mother early. She is past the mid point of her life I hope she finds some peace.
Yo, KingTV, I totally feel you on your comments, but there's way too much anger here. Save it for the important stuff, this is just too two people getting unhitched from each other :)
Mr. Morton,
I'm afraid you are in error. My husband's family was best friends with the Ciccone family, and he would tell you that Madonna was not born with a silver spoon in her mouth. She came from humble beginnings. Her early years were spent in Pontiac, Michigan with her five other siblings, in a house of approximately 1,000 sq. ft. After the death of her mother, her father remarried and had two additional children. He worked very hard to support all of them. Her stepmother started a day care business from their home (after they moved to Rochester). Rochester was and is a middle class neighborhood.
She should just do Vegas when the economy improves, of course and call it a day.
Thank you.
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